From these neglected corners of the Morning Post Agatha Ingham-Baker had duly learnt that Henry FitzHenry had been appointed navigating-lieutenant to the Terrific, lying at Chatham, which would necessitate his leaving the Kittiwake at Gibraltar and returning to England at once. She also read that the Indian liner Croonah had sailed from Malta for Gibraltar and London, with two hundred and five passengers and twenty-six thousand pounds in specie.
And John Craik had written to Eve to come to London, where she had a permanent invitation to stay with Mrs. Harrington.
From over the wide world these people seemed to be drifting together like leaves upon a pond--borne hither and thither by some unseen current, swirled suddenly by a passing breath--at the mercy of wind and weather and chance, each occupied in his or her small daily life, looking no further ahead than the next day or the next week. And yet they were drifting surely and steadily towards each other, driven by the undercurrent of Fate, against which the strongest will may beat itself in vain.
CHAPTER IV. FOR THE HIGHEST BIDDER.
Let thine eyes look right on.
“How handsome Fitz looks in his uniform!” Mrs. Ingham-Baker said, with that touch of nervous apprehension which usually affected all original remarks addressed by her to Mrs. Harrington.
Mrs. Ingham-Baker had been to Malta and back, but the wonders of the deep had failed to make a wiser woman of her. If one wishes to gain anything by seeing the world, it is best to go and look at it early in life.
“Yes,” answered Mrs. Harrington, with a glance in the direction of Agatha, the only other occupant of the drawing-room--“yes; he is a good-looking young fellow.”
Agatha was reading the Globe, sitting upright and stiff, for she was wearing a new ball-dress.
“I think,” went on Mrs. Ingham-Baker volubly, “that I have never seen a naval uniform before--in a room close at hand, you know. Of course, on board the Croonah the officers wore a sort of uniform, but they had not a sword.”